Anybody here an R.E.M. fan? No? Shit. Well, I was going to ask what your favorite album was. But that’s okay. I mean, all they did was alter the course of rock and roll forever. Screw you.
Automatic for the People is my favorite, though I haven’t listened to it for a while.
–tygre
I agree. Automatic for the People is their best. New Adventures in Hi-Fi is my second.
I’ll throw in my vote for Green (#1) and Eponymous (#2)(aka Hippopotomous). I always thought their older music was better…although I do like Automatic as well. Michael Stipe just seems to be getting weirder and I think that’s part of the problem with their most recent music IMHO.
(#1) “Out of Time” is my absolute favorite, between “Losing My Religion”, “Low”, and “Near Wild Heaven” you can’t really go wrong. I’m also a fan of “Radio Song” and “Belong” even though neither one is really R.E.M. flavor.
(#2) I don’t know whether it’s fair to count “Eponymous” since it’s just a collection of a bunch of their older stuff, but it’s as close to perfect as an album without “Maps and Legends” and “Superman” could be.
(#3) “Monster” was really, really underrated. “Strange Currencies” should have been a top 10 hit, and “King of Comedy” and “I Took Your Name” are also just great.
I thought that “Up” really suffered for lack of Bill Berry, but still managed to turn out a couple great songs, most notably “Hope” and “Walk Unafraid”.
O.K. So I was wrong. There are a few people here with good taste. 
My favorite is a toss-up between “Up” and “New Adventures,” although “Document” and “Murmur” are both good.
Mikey Stipe getting weird? Aww, come on. You gotta’ love that guy. Actually, you want weird, look at the lyrics from the very first albums, “Chronic Town,” “Murmur,” etc. They’re more or less nonsensical, and he’s the first to admit it.
A beautiful song on “Automatic”? Nightswimming. So pretty.
Definitely a fan.
Hard to pick a favorite album, though–they haven’t made a bad one. If you put a gun to my head, I’d say “Green”. Or “Life’s Rich Pageant”. Or “Out of Time”. Or just about any of them, depending on the day.
Dr. J
Well, I’m hardly the biggest R.E.M. fan - they’ve butchered a few of my favourite songs (eg Velvet Underground/Syd Barrett covers), but they still hold a precious place in my heart for one thing:
A week after I finished my last year of high school, I came down with the chicken pox and was seriously ill in bed - my memories of this time are of watching ‘You Can’t Do That On Television’, and the fact my mother, taking pity on me, said she would buy me a CD. I picked the recently released ‘Automatic for the People’, and at that time I thought it was one of the most beautiful and heart stirring records I had heard. I played it for about a year, and now I can’t really listen to it (although this discussion has sparked my interest again - I might give it a spin tonight). Also, I always thought ‘Find the River’ was an even prettier song than ‘Nightswimming’.
Now if only they hadn’t done such a lame version of ‘Femme Fatale’…
HenrySpencer
(formerly known as Iguana).
I like REM. Automatic for the People is my fave of theirs that I have, but I also really enjoy Green and Out of Time. And Up is good too, but not for the same reasons that their earlier albums were.
My votes go to “Murmur” and “Document”.
In chronological order, w/ best song:
- Reckoning (Rockville)
- Document (Exhuming McCarthy)
- Out of Time (Losing My Religion, or Me In Honey)
Depends on the day, you know. . .
Youz guyz are the coolest. Hey, for anybody out there with “Life’s Rich Pageant,” have you ever noticed how completely botched and out of order the track list is for the album? The mention of “Exhuming McCarthy” made me smile, too. I love the “have you no sense of decency” dialogue added in the background. Also of note to big fans is a recent dedication to R.E.M. done by the British Philharmonic. The album features purely string versions of their songs. Has anyone else seen this?
True…weird is good and does have a lot to do with their success. Maybe cynical is a better choice of words…there’s a very big difference between his older and more recent interviews.
And for true weirdness, try “Dead Letter Office” sometime.
I can’t believe no one has pinned “Fables of the Reconstruction” as their best album – Maps & Legends, Wendell G, Driver 8…
My Top Ten:
[list=1]
[li]Murmur. This would be my choice as the one CD I would take to the hypothetical desert island.[/li][li]Automatic for the People. Reaffirmed R.E.M.'s status as the best band of the last quarter of the 20th century. Did R.E.M. ever release “Nightswimming” as a single? I don’t think so, and if they didn’t, that was a major marketing failure. An achingly beautiful song.[/li][li]Chronic Town(do EPs count?). Some poor ignorant folks complain about the murky lyrics on this one and on Murmur, but that’s one of the things that make them great. Each song is open to multiple interpretations. Wolves, Lower. Gardening at Night. Boxcars. An absolutely phenomenal debut.[/li][li]Reckoning. So. Central Rain. Seven Chinese Brothers. Don’t Go Back to Rockville. All gems.[/li][li]Fables of the Reconstruction. Driver 8 is R.E.M.'s single greatest song, in my view.[/li][li]Life’s Rich Pageant. R.E.M.'s political conscience begins to awaken. “Fall on Me” and “Cuyahoga” are near-perfect protest songs.[/li][li]Green. This one’s under-rated. “You Are Everything” is the prize on this CD.[/li][li]Document. The record-buying public begins to realize what they’ve been missing.[/li][li]New Adventures in Hi Fi. “You’re eyes are burning holes in me…” A very under-rated CD. I find new and wonderful things every time I listen to it.[/li][li]Out of Time Although “Shiny Happy People” and “Radio Song” nearly kept this one out…[/li][/list=1]
I love every single R.E.M. album. The first one I got was Green, then Out of Time. These days, I actually don’t get into Out of Time as much as I used to. But Murmur, Fables of the Reconstruction and Document still sound new and exciting, like nothing else in the 80s and nothing else since. The local Seattle radio station, The End (107.7, which was the station in The Real World Seattle, and no, I don’t care either) played R.E.M. all the time back in the early 90s, even the more obscure stuff like “Can’t Get There from Here” and “Pretty Persuasion,” and that’s basically how I got to know them. Most new R.E.M. fans point to Automatic for the People as their favorite, and there is something timeless about that album… but I loved Monster and New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and even Up deserved more airplay than it got. I’ve got a bunch of rare R.E.M. stuff, too, like the Non Album Tracks bootleg that has their version of “First We Take Manhattan” by Leonard Cohen, and the “Photograph” track with Natalie Merchant. It’s too bad the alternative scene is filled up with rap-rock, post-grunge and third-wave ska revival, or there might be more R.E.M. on the radio nowadays.
AAAHH! You guys rock. Hey, question for you, Spoke: you must own Chronic Town (you sound as obsessed as I am), but in what form? Dead Letter Office? Or do you have the original tape?
I have the EP, and also have the Dead Letter Office CD.
Yeah, I’m a big fan. Don’t call me “obsessed,” though. I ain’t no teeny-bopper! 
I first heard R.E.M. in college (back in the day) when a fellow in my dorm broke out his copy of Chronic Town and put it on the turntable (remember those?). I was mesmerized. It was unlike any music I had ever heard before. A complete departure. When Murmur came out, I snatched it up, and have been mumbling along ever since.
Well all the albums rock… but I’ll try to list my top 5 or so…
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- Murmur
- Reckoning
- Up
- ah… er… everything else all at once
I’ve been a fan since I picked up Green, and Eponymous was the first CD i ever owned.
I finally got to see them in concert in Raleigh for the Up tour - Michael said they had lunch that day in Carrboro (where I live) across the street from the place where they played their very first gig outside of Georgia. They got in a nostalgic mood, and so at the concert they played “Camera.” Which was amazing because they practically never play the old ones at concerts!
I’ll never forget how Stipey greeted the part of the audience on the lawn at the ampitheater: “Are you feeling beautiful on the lawn?” Classic Stipe.
I’m a fan of R.E.M as well.
Here’s an obscure album list for you: REM collaborated with Warren Zevon on two albums: One was Warren Zevon’s “Sentimental Hygiene” (great album), and the other was “Hindu Love Gods”, a collection of covers by REM and Zevon. Check 'em out.